There we were sitting in class and listening to two Professors, who were enriching us with Peace Research on “How to manage transition processes in ways that do not provoke violence”. As intellectual as that sounded, however, everyone was quiet and almost bored, because they could no longer take much more after five weeks of the same lectures.

At the right moment when the professor stopped talking, one of our classmates sneezed the cutest sneeze ever. It’s not like she had never sneezed before. In this particular moment in class, her sneeze welcomed. Everyone laughed as the atmosphere was lightened. This got me thinking…

If a sneeze could put a smile on people’s faces from different cultures and backgrounds, how much more could a culture of peace within our communities do? Our class was made up of people from Cameroon, Zambia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Japan, China, Holland, Canada, America, Germany, UK and several other countries – whose names are hard to pronounce. We were people with different views and perspectives, but could laugh and smile at a cute sneeze.

it dawned on me that developing a culture of peace was all about relations. How do you relate to your annoying neighbor on the bus? How do you respond to your son or daughter who tells you that a teacher or lecturer has done this or that? Will you try to understand the situation from both sides, or will you take your kid’s side or the teacher’s side?

Are we teaching our young ones to be self-centered or communal? Should we abandon our responsibilities  as parents and  leave everything to educators to teach our children how they should live? Parents too have a responsibility and a duty to their children.

If you go back to the traditional societies, you will discover that in many homes, societal knowledge was passed on to children through oral speech. myths and stories at night by the moms and grandparents had moral lessons, which were used to teach them about the way of life.  A child would be asked later for example, “Do you remember the wasp’s story? Do you remember what happened when the wasp allowed his anger to take over?” The moral lesson drawn from the story addressed the issue of anger. if you allow anger to take control of you, regrettable things can happen that could have been avoided.

Many  traditional societies had values engraved in songs, myths and riddles , which coached the people to co-existing together in peace and harmony. The lessons gave a sense of belonging and identity. For those who were able to maintain such traditions, they raised their children in ways that were different.

therefore, how can those old traditions be revived in order to help develop a culture of of peace?  Parents need to teach children to exercise peace in their daily interactions with people. to help their children attain this goal, the adults in their lives need to model the lifestyle. Children learn best through observation. What authority will you have over your children, if you do not set the example for them to follow? A culture of peace begins with you as the parent and your children will inherit it.